


World Enough, And Time

by rednihilist



Series: Colin Luthor 'Verse [16]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Drama, M/M, Non Consensual, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run." ~Andrew Marvell</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Enough, And Time

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: "Smallville" and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et al. No profit is gained from this writing—only, hopefully, enjoyment.
> 
> Warnings for aftermath of torture and rape.
> 
> Title and quoted passages come from Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."

It wasn't the scientists at the Centre who taught him how to read and write. That's how he learned to speak passable English, but the only letters and numbers he knew at first were most definitely not English, and it wasn't until a few months after his arrival that the people in white began setting in front of him sheets of paper with indecipherable black markings and expecting him to do something with them. Years later, when he actively thought about it and later sought confirmation from the source, Lin realized he'd been reading at a high school level within six months of speaking the language and three of reading it.  
  
People don't know that, though. How could they? How to explain something like that, where he comes from, what life has been like for as far back as he can remember? They can't know that, the normal people of the world, but even those who could—don't, wouldn't want to. Lex feels guilty enough on his own already that Lin could never talk to him explicitly about the Centre. He's not heartless or cruel like that. And Julian has his own life, his own issues. Besides which, Lin's the older brother. Once, for a long time even, Lian was something of a confidant, but that time is long gone. And Bruce is an incomparable listener, advisor, ally, and friend, but there's no reciprocation with him; it's like talking to an unusually wise tree. Maybe he was free with himself once upon a time with Rachel Dawes or Lex, or maybe he is now with Dick or Alfred or even Julian, but Bruce and Lin have never been particularly close. They're too similar, and Lin wonders sometimes if Bruce also feels as though he's looking into a mirror every time the two of them stand face-to-face.  
  
He loves Bruce and trusts him with more than his life, but the fact is Colin hates being near him, and he doesn't know if it's better or worse if Bruce were to feel the same way. It'd certainly be easier on them both.  
  
It truly then falls to one person, the only one who will always understand for the very simple reason that he was there for nearly all of it. To most people, Lin Luthor is damaged and will likely forever be thought of as that troubled teenager on the fronts of tabloids, Lex and Bruce and Jameson shielding him as best they could from the cameras, Nick physically pulling him through the crowd. Lin Luthor is the boy with eyes too big for his face, the mouth that never opens. He's a victim, Lian telling him once that the media still calls him "traumatized." If only they knew.  
  
Outside, inside, with everyone, there is always the pressure, the expectations heaped upon him that he will be what people expect, Superman or Colin or Lin or Linny.  
  
But, with Lucas. . .  
  
"You knew how to read before-  _before_ , didn't you?" Lin asks him one night.  
  
Lucky turns his head to look at him but doesn't nod in confirmation, as Lin had anticipated. Instead, he brings his hand up and tilts it back and forth a few times.  
  
Sort of? A little? What does that mean exactly?  
  
Lucas must easily read Lin's confusion because he huffs a little chuckle before saying, quietly, "Barely, poorly."  
  
"Bad home?" Lin asks, carefully.  
  
Lucky shakes his head and looks away. "Bad eyesight and little inclination." He waits a moment, clearly thinking back in time, which Lin knows perfectly well is harder for him than for others for two reasons, one obvious and one—not so much. "Maybe somewhat a—bad home, but I didn't know why it was so difficult until they tested my eyesight for a baseline. In There." Lucas turns to look at him then, saying, "You remember the glasses."  
  
Lin nods, even though Lucky hadn't been asking.  
  
"You didn't, though, did you—not right away, at least," Lucky suddenly remarks, and Lin knows what he means and slowly nods again. Lin hadn't known how to read English when he'd first been put into the room, not even poorly. "Who taught you?" Lucas eventually asks, his voice just as careful now as Lin's was a moment ago. They each have their sore spots.  
  
Lucas just hit Lin's, but Lin was the one who'd brought it up in the first place. Maybe he had wanted to be hurt, be reminded of the hurt. It happens that way sometimes, more often than anyone thinks. Can't hurt others, after all. Hurting himself is the next best thing.  
  
In response to Lucky's question, Lin looks over at him, pointedly raising his eyebrows and quirking his mouth to the side. He's always considered the truth fairly obvious, but that evidently isn't the case. It takes Lucky another few seconds to figure it out, but then he audibly swallows heavily, digesting the new information. Lin huffs a little, a morbid laugh. That's about as emotive as Lucas gets these days. Lin should probably feel honored.  
  
He turns back to looking out over the city as its citizens prepare for the approaching storm, the heavy cloud cover blocking the stars and the powerful winds whipping around Superman's cape and the Blur's coat, one tangled in the other, red and black, past and future twisting and coiling into the present.  
  
After a moment, Lin whispers, "He was a good teacher," the words a confession.  
  
He feels more than sees the acknowledging nod. "He was a very successful man," Lucky responds.  
  
It's a strange thing to say but correct. Of all of them, Lucas is the most impartial, the most fair, the one who sees things both for what they are and what they can be. And he knows; Lucky's seen it.  
  
Lin suddenly turns his whole body towards Lucky, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. There's no flinch, Lucas actually leaning into the touch. Perhaps Lois has been a calming influence on him—a humanizing one.  
  
"I owed him so much," Lin says, and Lucas takes it up.  
  
"Couldn't disappoint him, and then it became proving him wrong, but it started out as love—or something like it."  
  
"If he had asked, really asked," Lin says, taking another step closer to Lucas as part of him screams to stop it, quit it, step back and end this insanity, this sickness, this punishment, for both their sakes, "I would have said 'yes' anyway."  
  
The Blur's mask is down, completely covering Lucas' face, his entire head, but usually Lin looks past it automatically. This time, though, one invasion is already too much, and so he pulls back his vision. He gives Lucas that privacy, even as he's pressed up against him, his hand sliding up to the place where shoulder meets neck and his fingers and thumb curling around Lucky's throat. He loves Lucas even as he despises him, and here is his true brother, his twin, blood of his blood.  
  
Lex is something else, something more, someone cleaner who's removed from the worst of it, and Julian is purest snow, too innocent, a child, a son more than anything.  
  
Lin runs his hand around the back of Lucas' neck, gripping it at the point where a mere flex of his fingers could snap the bones, and he wonders if he's becoming a statistic.  
  
Then, as Lucky inclines his head, going so far as to bend at the neck in order to give Lin even more exposure to his vulnerable spot, the other person controlling Lin's mouth poses the heinous question, "What would you say if  _I_  asked?"  
  
There's no hesitation. Lucky says in his calmest voice, "I say you're a liar, that you are lying to me and to yourself." And then Lucas quickly reaches up, almost invisible to even Lin's eyes, and grabs Lin's hand at the wrist, holding, squeezing—a warning, a promise. "I say 'no,' Lin, just like you did. You going to force me, too?"  
  
Lin swallows, gulps really, releasing Lucky and moving away in a flash. Good. Good.  
  
Lucky calls out across the rooftop, "You think I don't know it's a test? I'm different, but I'm not stupid."  
  
Lin chuckles, feeling sick. "No, you're not," he agrees. He's standing right by the ledge of the roof and leans forward to brace an arm against it, resting his weight and breathing deeply.  
  
Testing—it's always a goddamned test. Everything about life is a test, and Lin knows he's constantly failing, slipping, falling. They pick him up, dust him off, and he smiles like it's fine, but inside it's different. Lin's starting to realize that perhaps inside—he's dead.  
  
***  
  
"And now the next passage. . . ?"  
  
He looks back down and reads out loud, "'But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity.'" He thinks, looking at the words in the grouping, the stanza, like the Man said to, and then quietly says, "Scaring her?"  
  
"Very good!" the Man tells him, his voice happy. He reaches over and puts his hand on K's neck. "He's using every means of persuasion to get what he wants. And the final bit?"  
  
"'Let us roll all our strength and all,'" K reads slowly, "'Our sweetness up into one ball, / And tear our pleasures with rough strife / Thorough the iron gates of life.'" Thinking again, he says, "He does not care."  
  
The hand on his neck pushes, is heavy, fingers curling around to grip him. "And what makes you say that? He's gone to quite a bit of trouble to convince her. Surely the easier way would simply be to take what he wants. . . ?"  
  
"Make her, either way," K says. "Force. She does not want. . . " He cannot think of the right word, so he looks to the Man for help.  
  
The Man is smiling—happy still.  
  
K smiles back then says, "I like the words, the—pattern."  
  
"The rhyme scheme? The meter?" The Man reaches over with his other hand and points down. "The sounds or how the words are arranged?"  
  
"Both," K says, and he smiles again, and the Man makes his quiet laughing sound.  
  
"What's your favorite part then?" he asks, hand moving from the top to the bottom. "Which words do you like most?"  
  
K puts his eyes on the Man's and repeats, "'Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.'"  
  
The Man's smile changes, and K feels good for making that happen. When the hand on his neck stays there through the next grouping of words and the one after that, and when the Man comes into K's room the next day and his hand right away grabs K by the back of the neck and he sits close and smiles and laughs quietly—K feels good then, too. Important, he remembers. He is becoming important.  
  
***  
  
He's not even allowed to stay the whole day. Immediately after the funeral, Lionel has one of the techs come and take him back. The worst part is he doesn't get to say goodbye, not to Lex, not to the baby. They get out of the limo, and Lionel holds him back while Lex trudges inside through the rain.  
  
"One of Dr. Garner's assistants will be here soon," Lionel says, voice as cold and emotionless as Lin has ever heard it. "You will accompany this person back to the Centre. Wait here." Then, he walks away, following Lex inside and leaving Lin to just stand there in the pouring rain. The chauffeur who'd opened the car door and then closed it is now staring awkwardly, and Lin tries to feel something for the sympathy there on the man's face. He tries but fails. Slowly, the man turns and walks back around the front of the limo to the driver's side, getting in and starting it and guiding it along the drive to the back of the house where the garage is. And Lin is just left there, in the rain, alone, on the day of Lillian's funeral.  
  
"We've still got each other," Lex had said, but that's not true, or at least it's not true all the time.  
  
It's 16 minutes and 47 seconds later that the town car with the assistant turns onto the property. Nothing is said. The man sitting in the backseat simply opens the door and scoots to the other side of the car, and Lin walks over and climbs inside. The driver then turns the car around, heading back out to the freeway on-ramp and then getting off on the third downtown exit, and then turning before the building proper, right into the Centre's loading area. This is where they bring freight, the supplies that make this place run but aren't important enough or worthy of the front entrance.  
  
He's never been through the front entrance.  
  
The assistant puts a proprietary hand on Lin's neck, as they walk inside and get in the elevator and go up to the room floor. Up is room; down is lab. He's glad it's up. The doors open with a polite ding, and they're walking forward again, only to take the second right, which is another hallway. Third door on the left, and Lin stops in front of it before the assistant does. Clean-up time—always clean-up time after he's returned, brought back like a stray. Time for sanitization.  
  
The clothes are taken away by someone already wearing the white suit. Probably a man. Lionel only lets a certain kind of woman work here and even then mostly only studying and researching. Hands-on is always a man.  
  
Today, it's a gray shirt and gray pants. Lin's surprised; it's been awhile since the last time it was gray. He looks up at the assistant's face, and maybe there's something there, and maybe there isn't. Gray's not black, after all, but it's different. White is a color of mourning in some places, and black has never been an option to wear in the three and a half years Lin's—been here.  
  
When he's done, it's the hand on his neck again, and they're out the door on the opposite side of the room from where they'd entered and down another hallway, and then it's a turn left, and his room is right there, right where he'd left it this morning. The assistant has the key, and he removes the hand to unlock the glass and slide it back. Then, Lin goes inside, and the assistant locks it back up and leaves. A minute and 12 seconds later, he thinks to listen for sounds of Lucas next door, but there are none. No one's there. Lin goes over to his cot and sits down. A moment later, he brings his legs up and rests his head on his knees, his arms curling around his calves. He falls asleep that way.  
  
He wakes up when a group of people pass by his room quickly. Four, maybe five people, and he can hear as they stop at Lucas' room, open the door, and go inside. Then, four people come back out, and three rush by, one stopping in front of Lin's room to look at him. A moment's hesitation, and then the man in his white protective suit keys Lin's door open and waves at him to come out.  
  
This isn't good.  
  
Lin gets up and walks over, and the man reaches out and grabs him by the arm, hauling him over and then pushing him into Lucas' room before closing the door and locking it. Lin can hear him shut and lock Lin's door then too. Then the man leaves altogether, and Lin turns around and sees what they've done.  
  
"Lucas?" he asks, and already his voice sounds thick and unsteady. He shuffles closer, careful not to seem threatening, hands up and body loose. "Lucky, are you ok?"  
  
No, he's not ok. Lin knows that, but what else can he say?  
  
At least they gave him some kind of painkiller. Lin can tell. It probably didn't blur everything, but even a little is better than nothing. That's what usually happens. Better results if the subject isn't compromised in any way. The more pain the better.  
  
Lin sets a hand on Lucas' shoulder and gets a groan and more twitching as Lucky tries to turn over or sit up but clearly can't control his body right now. He's been cleaned up pretty thoroughly, with some residual bloodstains still lingering around his jaw and at the creases of his eyelids. Probably threw up the blood again. When Lin's not there, Lucky doesn't keep it down so well.  
  
They put him on the bed, and he's been arranged to lie in a comfortable position, so Lin sits on the edge of the cot and just barely touches Lucas. He always runs hot, and right now it'll be even worse with the blood so fresh in his system.  
  
Lin sits there for a good five minutes before Lucas manages to move. It's a hand on top of Lin's, and Lucky's eyes are still big and dazed, and he doesn't really know what's happening because he smiles, soft and nice. Lin tries to smile back, but Lillian is in the ground forever, and Lex is alone, and there's a new baby person who belongs to Lionel, and Lucas is being ruined over and over, now even when Lin isn't here—and it's all Lin's fault.  
  
Lucas keeps smiling and pats Lin's hand, and then he starts shaking and twitching. That's when the seizures start. Must've been morphine; Lucky always gets seizures after morphine.  
  
***  
  
When he wakes up, he's back under the sheet in his room. The lights are up, and his pajamas are still on the floor. Some of his paper towels are used up and have been thrown into the waste bin. Now, he's down to four sheets, enough for cleanup for maybe three drawings or one painting. Maybe they'll give him more now that he's doing more. Maybe they won't, though. It's supposed to be a secret, after all.  
  
He doesn't get up. Men come in hours later and make him, but he just goes along. They take Lucky too, and he stares at Lin with a weird look on his face, probably because Lin's naked, but no one says anything. Maybe it's not really a secret then.  
  
When they tie him down, he can feel the pounding of his green necklace inside him, but then they take it away. He hurts, knows he still does even without the green, but it will get worse in only a few minutes, so what does it matter? No one cares. Lucas tries to reach across the gap between their tables, but Lin turns his head away and pulls his arm back. He'd promised; they both had. What nonsense. They'd both lied. No one can 'never leave.' Nobody can always be there.  
  
It's not sound anymore. Now, it's toughness. Fire, last time. Lucky's getting better, stronger. When the knives come out, it's only two marks left behind for every one of Lin's. Maybe it's finally working. They take Lucky out, and then try fire again. Missed a sample reading from last week, they tell him. They got Lucas alone and the two of them together, but now it's Lin's turn. People come in and clear out all the equipment, one coming over to Lin and releasing him. He stands up and moves away so his table can be wheeled out too, and then he's alone as the voice tells him to try and stand in place for the resting rate as first the heat and then the fire rise. It hurts, burns, but the longer it continues, the less he feels it. When it's shut off, the pain isn't there at all, and Lin opens his eyes and looks down at himself. He's covered in black marks, soot, and even as he watches—the brown, leathery skin of his body lightens and smoothes out. Now, there's pain. The voice from the other room tells him to sit down, that he's likely in shock and they'll wait a moment before getting his active rate.  
  
Lin sits down on the floor. His body even now is almost done healing from the fire, and all marks of what happened with the knives before that are long gone, so last night is nothing more than a memory. Any blood was wiped away with his paper towels, any bruising fully healed. His body fixes itself just fine. He thinks he might still hurt, though, somewhere deeper than his body, inside. Maybe not, though. He can't feel it anymore. Maybe it's gone, or maybe it's numb, permanently.  
  
Maybe he never felt it in the first place, never felt anything. Maybe it's all lies. When the voice tells him to stand and proceed to run around the room, when the heat and the fire rise up once more, he certainly feels nothing.  
  
Lionel comes back again that night; Lin wakes up again naked the next morning.  
  
***  
  
When Lucas is 14, he starts talking about how the world could be different. It's only ever to Lin when they're alone and even then just in the tiniest and lowest of whispers, but it's upsetting, disturbing. Lucky says he dreams of a world where he and his mom live in an apartment and he gets Cs in school and becomes a mechanic.  
  
"I like motorcycles there," he says one time. "Terry, the man who owns the garage, he'll say later that I'm the best employee he's ever had. He'll invite me over for dinner with his family. Mom will pretend to be happy for my sake, but I'll know, Lin. I'll know she hoped for more. It will be ok, though. He'll be fine over there."  
  
What's even more upsetting is when Lin starts dreaming, too. His dreams aren't anything like coherent, however. Where Lucas apparently sees one world after another, Lin sees too much all at once. He sees faces he knows that are different. He sees people he's never met but somehow recognizes.  
  
There's a connection somewhere, and during the third reverse transfusion, Lin finally gets it. He looks over at Lucas, strapped down with chains now because he's almost as strong as Lin these days, and he realizes whatever lives in Lucas is now alive in him.  
  
Women with red hair, girls with wide, accusing eyes, laughter, smiles that don't cost a thing, apple pie, tractors, a cubicle and a nameplate, and Lex—a thousand dreams, and there's always Lex right there but somehow forever out of reach. He thinks he kills him at one point. Another time, he wakes up in the dead of night, screaming because Lex had been in there when it'd blown up. He'd been in there when it exploded.  
  
They ask, and Lin never answers, and neither does Lucky. It's their little secret. Maybe they're both just crazy, the place finally getting to them. Maybe Lin's blood is defective, contaminated. Maybe this is why they shouldn't play God.  
  
He's given another test with the red stone, this time in full observation and containment with green-laced chains wrapped around him. Lionel's in the other room, and Lin turns his head, keeps his eyes on him the entire time. "Give us a kiss, won't you, Dad? Oh, it's been too long since we bonded, had some real father-son time," he says, laughing. Before they come in to take the red necklace off, he bites and rips at the inside of his mouth so that, when they're close enough, he can spit his blood at them, right on their face masks, their stupid protective gear. "Good sample there, huh? Make sure you catalog that!"  
  
The next day, Lionel comes and takes him back to the house. He hugs Julian, who's grown and matured and is still somehow naïve and ignorant of all that goes on. They watch a movie after dinner, and he says goodnight, and then later he goes down the hall.  
  
Lin takes off his clothes, and Lionel watches him. He smiles, amused at the continued interest even after all these years.  
  
"Not tired of me yet?" he dares to ask.  
  
Lionel reaches out and pulls him close, scratching a line down Lin's back with one hand as he says, eyes on the green around Lin's throat, "Never."  
  
Two and a half weeks later, he goes against his arrangement with Lionel and helps Lian meet up with Lex. They go to a movie and no doubt have a wonderful time. As a result, Lin gets slugged in the gut, slapped in the face, and punched in the eye. He gets pushed up against the wall, with his pants down around-  
  
That night, briefly, while curled around Julian late in the evening, he falls asleep and dreams of a different world and not just a different version of this world—a different planet, a different life, a different family.  
  
He wakes up, crying, Lian holding him with sympathetic tears of his own running down his small, kind face. "Who's Lara?" Lian asks, quietly.  
  
"I don't know," he answers. "Doesn't matter, anyway."  
  
On Tuesday, when Mr. Umlaz shows up, Colin hands him the completed essay he'd been assigned Thursday and then leans in and kisses him on the mouth. The man pushes him away and tries to talk to him. Then, he leaves and is stupid enough, apparently, to tell Lionel what happened because Lin hears all about it later that night.  
  
"You think this changes anything?" Lionel demands. "You've pulled this kind of crap before and look what happened?"  
  
"Why don't you just whore me out to all your business buddies and be done with it?" Lin fires back.  
  
He gets a hand around his throat for that and Lionel saying softly into his ear, "I won't let anyone else have you—ever. Is that not clear?" His other slides up Lin's hip to his waist. "You're my prize. What kind of man would I be if I let you slip through my fingers?"  
  
They both know what kind of man Lionel would be—and what kind of man he is not.  
  
***  
  
Lucas has told him before that he periodically dreams of Lin and Lex together. It seems only fair then that Lin dreams of Lucas with Lois. It's not terrible, but he only just tolerates it. It's awkward and vaguely painful, but he manages to be happy for Lucky's sake.  
  
It's worse when he dreams, remembers, Lionel. It's exponentially worse when Lucas once confesses that he too sometimes dreams of Lionel, dreams of Lin and Lionel—remembers Lin and Lionel. At least it had happened only the once.  
  
Whether it had been meant as a punishment for them both or not, that was how it turned out. Across that old table in the dayroom, while Lucas was forced to watch. Bad things happen when they don't do what they're told. Lucas watched, all right. Lin didn't, though. He kept his eyes closed. At least he was allowed that. If he didn't think while it was happening, then it wasn't happening.  
  
Instead, he remembers pretending it was just the dayroom, just him filling out the handouts and worksheets they'd given him all the time back then when he was little—before he even knew there was an 'outside'. Always used to have hundreds of assignments. They were incredibly simple in the beginning.  
  
And everything comes full circle. The dayroom was where he and Lucas first met, and it's where that kid Lucas died and some other Lucas was born.  
  
When Lin remembers the dayroom, he remembers Lionel's belt buckle clinking, Lucas' eyes wide and terrified and furious. He remembers the rising tide of shame and hopelessness.  
  
When Lin dreams of the dayroom, he dreams of paper and a tiny Lucas with glasses who talked a lot and knew everything. He dreams of his brother as he was, not as he became. . .  
  
. . . and the door opens when he is answering the questions. He looks up and the whitesuits move something in. It is smaller than they are, smaller than the Man. It is a person. Then the whitesuits leave again.  
  
"Hello," the small person says.  
  
"Hello," K says back. He looks down again at his questions and tries to keep answering them. The other person comes closer.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
K looks up again. "Questions I have to answer."  
  
"Like homework?" And the person's face moves. 'Homework' must be a bad thing.  
  
He does not understand, so he says, "I answer them, and then I can read or draw."  
  
The other person nods. "Like homework," he says again.  
  
K answers three more questions, and then the other person says, "My name's Lucas. What's yours?"  
  
He does not understand, so he says nothing. The other person, Lucas, does not like this.  
  
"You're kind of rude," Lucas says, his face moving again.  
  
He does not understand.  
  
"I do not understand," K says, quietly. He does not look, but Lucas moves closer.  
  
"What do you mean? It's called introductions. I told you my name. Now, you tell me yours."  
  
"What is name?"  
  
Lucas is close, but he does not speak. K looks up, and Lucas' face is—different.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asks. "A name's what people call you. People call me Lucas, Lucas Dunleavy. What do they call you?"  
  
He—does not understand.  
  
"The Man says 'boy.'"  
  
"What?" Lucas asks. "What man?"  
  
"The Man who comes. He says 'boy' when he sits down and when he goes."  
  
Lucas is quiet. K looks back at his questions. They are all answered.  
  
"You don't have a name? For real?"  
  
He looks up again.  
  
"What did your parents call you?" Lucas asks. "Do you remember them? I don't remember mine, but that's because they died."  
  
"Mine died too," K says, and he does not understand why he says it. He looks at the door to the room. The whitesuits do not come in. He looks back at Lucas. "I think it was a 'K'," he says, very quietly.  
  
"'K'?"  
  
He nods.  
  
"Well, that's a name," Lucas says. "I've heard of people with that name." He leans close and says, quietly, "But, they're mostly girls."  
  
K looks back down at his answered questions. He does not understand. He does not know 'girls.'  
  
***  
  
Lionel is dead, but that's not the end of it. The police still need to know what happened. Luckily, everyone, even Alfred, even Julian, even the other staff of Bruce's house, understands the need to—lie. Yes, they were here all night. No, they never left.  
  
The detectives talk to Lex and Bruce alone for a long time. They're all in Bruce's office, while the rest of them wait with two uniformed cops in one of the sitting rooms. Nick arrived about ten minutes ago and went straight into the office , and they'd had Jameson on the phone for awhile earlier. Then, Lian comes up to Lin and tentatively asks if he's listening in.  
  
One of the cops is carefully watching them, and Lin looks down at his hands as he answers, "No, I don't think I want to know what they're discussing in there."  
  
Later, a few days after the fact, more cops come calling, detectives from Metropolis who are handling their case directly. Lex gives his statement, then Bruce, then Alfred. They save Lin for last. Lucas comes out, and then one of the detectives, the older one, he's looking at Lin.  
  
"Colin," he asks, holding the door open, "would you mind coming in and answering some questions for us? It won't take long."  
  
It's nothing new. Everything they ask he's been asked before, except. . .  
  
"Now, Colin, in your deposition for the custody hearing, you said the deceased kept photographs of you in his desk at work. Is that correct?"  
  
"Yes," Lin answers. The detective who'd asked nods, the other just continuing to look at him, so Lin clarifies by saying, "I was naked in them and 13." The younger detective shifts in her seat, and a part of Lin he's well familiar with licks its chops at this visible sign of discomfort. He can't resist adding, "He took them himself, enjoyed showing them off from what I understand." He waits a beat and then loudly asks, "Why?"  
  
The first detective, still going for patience and understanding, and it's true there's a certain jaded, world-weariness about him, nods his head and says calmly, "No such pictures were found anywhere in the deceased's possessions." Then, he looks up, Detective Hanson of the accepting demeanor, and meets Lin's eyes. "Do you know what might have happened to them?"  
  
"No idea at all," Lin promptly answers. "Maybe he had them at the Centre. Maybe," and here he smiles, "he had them in his hand when he burned alive. That is how he died, right—in the fire?"  
  
"Yes," Detective Hanson answers, and with that one word spoken by a complete stranger, Lin suddenly finds himself at loose ends.  
  
They're both studying him closely, and now the younger one, Sawyer, he remembers, asks, "Is that comforting?" It's almost challenging.  
  
"Sawyer," her partner quietly rebukes.  
  
"I've been set free," Lin tells her pointblank. "Am I supposed to feel something else?" The words come out sounding thin and unsure, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that's actually how he feels.  
  
The detectives leave after that, and Lin tells Alfred he's going out to the stables. Lucas is already out there, and Lin steps up to the railing next to him, leaning on his elbows and not looking anywhere but straight ahead.  
  
"Did you somehow take those pictures from him?" he asks.  
  
"It wasn't difficult," Lucky responds, and Lin can't contain a snort of laughter at the thread of injured pride running through his voice. "I knew you wouldn't want others seeing them, so I took care of it."  
  
Lin waits until he's calmed down, until he's steady again, and then he turns and with one hand on Lucas' shoulder says, "Thank you."  
  
***  
  
He's too late, and Lucky's already dying, his blood, their blood, spilling out onto the highway. Lin lifts him up and holds him close and flies North to the ice fortress. He sets Lucky down on a platform and codes in the healing program. A missile still needs to be dealt with, so he has to leave Lucas to attend to that. When he gets back, everything's going well.  
  
Lucas wakes up, cries, says he's missed him. Lin pulls him close and tells him he's not alone.  
  
It's a lie, though. Lucky is alone; they both are. Lin won't always be able to go after Lucas. Lucky can't follow Lin everywhere. That's what the last two years boils down to—Lin trying to piece together who and what he is alone, without the Luthors, without everything else in his life distracting him.  
  
But, he's Colin Luthor, not Clark Kent, not Kal-El, not a million other men.  
  
The best thing about Lucas is he never lies, never needs to. He lives without regret. He is wholly straightforward. He's a good person, even if he's done what some might call an evil act. Lin doesn't think it counts, though. If only good things follow, is it still considered wrong?  
  
Murdering Lionel is something Lin will likely dream of doing for the rest of his life.  
  
He's not Lucas, but then he's not Lionel, either. That's something, at least.  
  
***  
  
What makes it worth it isn't one single thing—it's everything, big and small, every person, every day, every conversation because it's all more than he had before. He appreciates it now instead of resenting it. It's something to rejoice in, holding open the door for strangers, the smile someone flashes as they cross paths, the heartfelt 'thank you' Superman receives upon rescuing someone or Lin gets when helping Angie unload the groceries.  
  
His only sticking point is that he doesn't go to therapy. He doesn't need it or want it, and it's too risky besides. They're constantly arguing about this, though, and what gets repeatedly thrown in his face by everyone concerned is the fact that 'even Lucas has a therapist.'  
  
Good for him. Lin is not Lucas. It's not the same at all.  
  
Now, though, standing here on the rooftop, he wonders if he isn't just playing the martyr again, dressing his refusal up as excess and risk when it's really cowardice.  
  
Lucas comes closer but mercifully makes no move to touch him. They need to leave soon if they're to avoid the storm. To this day, Lin has no love for lightning.  
  
"You're brave when it's for someone else," Lucky says above the growing roar of the wind.  
  
"What would I even be able to say?" Lin shoots back, belligerently. "I'd have to lie through my teeth, or else they'd try to commit me. How is that healthy?"  
  
"Depends on who you're talking to."  
  
Lin turns at that, looking at Lucky through the Blur's mask and trying but failing to see anyone but the same person he's always seen.  
  
"Are you happier now, do you think?" Lin asks. It sounds a lot like pleading.  
  
Lucky looks at him and then reaches up and pulls off the mask. "I'm happy now, and I wasn't then. Does that help?"  
  
Lin shrugs.  
  
Lucky turns back to looking at the city. "I think you don't know how to be truly happy because it's always gone away, but this time it's not going away—not like before."  
  
"Is that a fact?" Lin asks, as overhead thunder cracks, and seconds later lightning flashes down over the bridge. He shivers, flinches, and that's when Lucky puts a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Would I keep telling you, otherwise?"  
  
***  
  
For every dream of Lionel or the Centre, there are hundreds of Julian, Lucas, and the others, and a thousand and one of Lex. For every deliberate slice, jab of a needle, or pulsing chunk of meteor rock, there are a dozen hugs, caresses, and twice as many kisses. Lin will wake up sometimes, screaming and crying, but Lex is there. He's not alone.  
  
Lin has Lex, and Lucas has Lois, and they are neither of them alone. They're not together, but they don't have to be anymore. Now when he and Lucas meet, they do so because they want to.  
  
Tonight, however, it's the storm. It's on its way out of the Metropolis skies but slowly and with emphasis, and Lin wakes up remembering the rooftop of Haermon Hall, clutching his hands together as they're stomped on, as they rip his clothing and tie him up—again, again, always tied down.  
  
"Breathe, Lin," Lex is saying in between Lin's sobs. "It's ok now. Come on, just breathe with me. Shhh. Slowly, that's it. Just you and me. Just breathe."  
  
Lin forces his hands to unclench and rolls over to face Lex, an understandably worried Lex. He gets a watery smile and a lingering stroke down his arm. "That was a rough one," Lex offers quietly, leaving it open-ended enough that it's up to Lin whether or not to continue the conversation.  
  
He finally decides on, "I still don't do well with storms."  
  
Lex nods. "I've noticed." Another stroke of his hand up to Lin's neck, but that's when Lin reaches out and grabs him, stopping him cold.  
  
"Not unless you mean it," he says. When Lex just frowns in confusion, Lin clarifies, saying, "I have, I guess, certain—triggers, you might say. My throat is one."  
  
Lex looks at him for a moment before carefully pulling his hand back and pointedly placing it on Lin's chest, not his neck.  
  
"Ok," he then says, smiling when Lin breathes out. "Only when I really mean it." He waits a moment, and then slowly, deliberately, takes Lin's hand and puts it on his own throat. "I trust you to know when," Lex tells him confidently, and Lin thinks about his entire life up until this point.  
  
"'Thus,'" he quotes, staring Lex in the face and squeezing ever so slightly, "'though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.'"  
  
Lex responds by leaning down and kissing him.

 


End file.
